


Don't Call Me Hero

by Judgement



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25860313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judgement/pseuds/Judgement
Summary: Astra Mercer has never thought of herself as ahero. Because for everything she's saved, she's yet to save what matters.
Kudos: 1





	Don't Call Me Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snippets into the head of my WoL as she goes about her adventure, wishing that someday someone will be able to kill her.

He’s the first to notice when she first arrives, but she barely recalls a time since they’ve met that he _hasn’t._ An enigmatic string that binds them together, perhaps as lovers or perhaps as something else—she hasn’t figured out what to call the feeling welling in the pit of her stomach. The mixture of relief yet ribbons of anxiety it’s laced with, like tendrils that send her arms and back stiff until he’s standing before her. 

_He doesn’t change_. She thinks distantly as he welcomes her with a hug that strangely melts away all the anxiety if only for a moment. He’s warm and _bright_ and it reminds her of sunshine and just as abruptly she’s pulled away and the look on his face brings back the tendrils of anxiety. The goosebumps against her skin and she wants to look away but she _can’t_ , she can’t bring herself to pull her gaze away when he grabs her hand and presses it to his stomach. The chainmail is cold but she could still feel the warmth of blood on her hands the day he took the shot meant for her. The crude healing she’d done through tears as she attempted to knit his flesh back together knowing full well the cost of _her_ healing, especially done as she had.

Maybe he wishes he could feel sensation on his stomach again instead of the large empty numbness that he’d described once and only once. But the words engraved, finely stitched into her core to remind her of why she’d given up healing. The same numbness that covers the entirety of her body. The absence of any pain or _feeling_ aside from vague changes in temperature that felt like someone sticking their hand in the water while wearing a glove. There’s the dull sensation that _something_ surrounds your hand but you cannot feel it. It’s been a long time since Astra has physically _felt_ anything. 

And that is why she gave up healing.

He pulls her hand away from his stomach and lifts it to his lips, brushing them against her knuckles with the same smile that only creates mixed feelings. The anxiety is there, prominent, defiling her in different ways but there is a comfort in him being there, alive. 


End file.
